Should Google Be Worried Over GDrive Patent Claim?

Google Drive is at the center of its cloud app and OS strategy. Should Google be worried about this patent suit? Image: Courtesy of Google

A small Massachusetts software company has sued Google, claiming that the search giant’s brand-new Google Drive infringes one of its patents, Wired Enterprise’s Caleb Garling reported on Wednesday.

SuperSpeed claims that the Google Drive infringes on US patent number 5,918,244. Issued in 1999, the patent describes a “method and system for coherently caching I/O devices across a network.” Basically, this system uses machine memory — as opposed to hard disks — as a means of storing data and sharing it across multiple machines. “The cache keeps regularly accessed disk I/O data within RAM that forms part of a computer system’s main memory,” the patent reads. “The cache operates across a network of computers systems, maintaining cache coherency for the disk I/O devices that are shared by the multiple computer systems within that network.”

The ’244 patent, Garling writes, was issued to a company called EEC Systems in 1999 and bought by SuperSpeed that same year. SuperSpeed could not be reached for comment. The last “News” update to its website, from 2005, discusses the company’s win in a patent infringement suit against Oracle.

Given that Google Drive is the new ecosystem, if you will, for its cloud-based apps and Chrome OS, should Google be worried? Is SuperSpeed, which is seeking an injunction against the Google service and demanding royalties, acting like a patent troll here?

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